Tyler Cowen's latest e-book is titled "The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better." This new, short e-book addresses questions such as: Has median household income really stagnated in the United States? If so, why? Are the causes political or something deeper? What are the important biases in how we are measuring national income and productivity and why do they matter for economic policy? Are we getting enough value for all the extra money we are spending on the health care and education sectors? What do some major right-wing and left-wing thinkers miss about this phenomenon? How does all this relate to our recent financial crisis?

Along with numerous mentions in blogs and news outlets, Professor Cowen has presented a "Tedx Talk" on "The Great Stagnation."

About e-books: You don't need any special hardware to read an e-book. Amazon's Kindle is both a device and a free app available for iPhone, Windows PC, Mac, Blackberry, iPad, Android, and Windows Phone 7. An e-book reader is also available through Penguin.

In the News

"Battered by recession and menaced by China, the US hungers for explanations of its relative economic decline. Tyler Cowen, an economist and blogger, has provided one: that the country has run out of technological juice...This provocative thesis is one reason The Great Stagnation is the most discussed economics book of the year. Another stems from its format. Inspired by Marginal Revolution, the must-bookmark blog for economics nerds that he publishes, Cowen released the book only in electronic form. This ensured a timely arrival just as the US was emerging from financial meltdown and looking for answers."

"This isn't Mr. Cowen's first book, but it is probably his most important — or at least, his most impactful — one. It's not that he has the final say on America's current economic malaise, but rather because he takes the debate in an entirely new direction (new, at least, to most people) that gives so much value to his work."

"The primary argument of TGS is that the United States has been growing strongly for the past two centuries by relying on lots of low-hanging fruit, but now the days of easy growth are over. In particular, Tyler identifies three sources of easy growth that are no longer open to us."

"Tyler Cowen's new ebook How The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History,Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better is a bravura performance by one of the most interesting thinkers out there. I also think it's a great innovation in current affairs publishing—much shorter and cheaper than a conventional book in a way that actually leaves you wanting to read more once you finish it. My guess is that this is the future of books."

"I advise you to read Tyler Cowen's new e-book, "The Great Stagnation," in which he argues that Americans have already picked the low-hanging economic fruit and now face an entirely set of difficult decisions."

"Though shorter and less deeply researched than Prosperity, The Great Stagnation covers a lot of the same ground. Cowen's book is similarly compelling and lucid in its interpretation of past economic trends. "

"The best part is a very interesting and perceptive discussion of how the Great Stagnation is putting great strains on many aspects of governance, from political discourse to our ability to finance entitlements and public debts. "

"Surely new productive technologies will drive a rebound in supply before too long. Right? There's a sort of pessimism creeping into popular thinking that suggests this won't happen. George Mason University Professor Tyler Cowen's ebook, The Great Stagnation, captures some of the thinking."

"A lot of the force of [Cowen's] argument comes from contrasting the United States' glittering economic performance in the decades following World War II with the decidedly less impressive record in recent decades. "

"Cowen's conclusions are poignant and sobering, but he does provide some clear and actionable suggestions for each of us in the private sector and, more importantly, for our political leaders and lawmakers in Washington:"

"Mr. Cowen, a contributor to the Economic View column in Sunday Business, says the ability to swiftly release something with "a lot of intellectual content but without the padding of many books" harks back to a time when pamphlets discussing new theories and ideas about economics were churned out regularly. "

"Putting out an ebook with a major publisher has its similarities and differences compared to distributing a print edition. Cowen said the actual editing and pre-production of the book was the same, with obviously less emphasis on the front cover design."

"Since reading Tyler Cowen's "The Great Stagnation," I've been seeing a lot of support for a claim that I'd initially resisted: the idea that the technological advances of the 19th and early 20th centuries were far more important to both the economy and quality of life than what's come since. "

"You might argue that it is becoming cheaper to buy "stuff", but more expensive to buy truly "important things" like housing, health care, education for your children, and that the latter matters more for your well-being than I-pods. "

"Cowen makes persuasive arguments that productivity in the government sector, public education, and health care have stagnated or fallen since the 1970s, dragging down the average performance of the whole economy."

"Since its release in January, Tyler Cowen's "The Great Stagnation" has been one of the most talked-about books of the year, both for its thesis -- that America's economy has largely stalled since we used up the "low-hanging fruit" that propelled our growth for centuries, while we have pretended that those easy resources are still there -- and for how it was published, as a $4 "eSpecial.""

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